1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus and a method for managing a liquid crystal substrate for use in a liquid crystal display or an organic EL display, and more particularly to management of a liquid crystal substrate on the production line of liquid crystal substrates.
2. Description of the Related Art
On the production line including various processes, a liquid crystal substrate is tested for defects by a liquid crystal testing device, and repaired by a liquid crystal repair device based on the defect information detected by the liquid crystal testing device. On the production line, the liquid crystal substrate is usually provided with a plurality of panels on a glass substrate, each panel being formed with a plurality of TFT arrays.
The liquid crystal testing device tests the liquid crystal substrate for defects, for example, by inspecting a gate or a source provided on each of the plurality of TFT arrays for a gate-source short circuit, a point defect or a disconnection, thereby making determination of whether or not each panel or substrate is defective. The liquid crystal repair device repairs the defect of the liquid crystal substrate based on the detect information acquired by the liquid crystal testing device.
The detect information is simply exchanged between the liquid crystal testing device and the liquid crystal repair device. However, the liquid crystal substrate is not managed, regarding how the detect information acquired by the liquid crystal testing device is reflected to the liquid crystal repair device, or what defects occur on the production line of the liquid crystal substrate.
In addition, the recipes including the number of panels arranged on the substrate and their arrangement and the size of pixel on each panel are set for each liquid crystal substrate. The liquid crystal testing device or the liquid crystal repair device needs to test or repair the liquid crystal substrate based on the recipe information. In the related art, this recipe information is managed for each liquid crystal testing device or liquid crystal repair device, whereby each device is required to make the settings for every recipe information.
In the related art management of the liquid crystal substrate, the information acquired by each processing device or the recipe information is managed by individual device on the production line including a testing process and a repair process. Therefore, when a liquid crystal substrate managing apparatus performs identification of the defect or determination whether the substrate or panel is defective or not several times, it is difficult to make a redetermination by comparison with the determination in the previous process. In addition, since the determination precision depends on that of each device, the liquid crystal substrate managing apparatus is not expected to have higher determination precision unless the determination precision of each device is enhanced.
Also, since the information common to each device such as the recipe information and the defect information are managed by each of the liquid crystal testing device and the liquid crystal repair device, there is a problem that it is inefficient in the information management and it is difficult to manage a trend information of defects over the liquid crystal substrate management.